BTS Explains How They Became a Worldwide Phenomenon

"We focused on the music and messages that we thought were important."

The guys from BTS are fresh off the release of their latest album, Love Yourself: Answer, which made a massive splash on the iTunes charts and had fans hunting for clues in the first music video from the album, “Idol.” BTS’s meteoric rise to worldwide fame has some questioning how the boy band got so famous in the first place, but according to its members, their rise isn’t all about tweets and hashtags and fan accounts.

The BTS Army is, of course, a passionate fan base; they’re intensely loyal to the band and spend hours decoding photos and songs. But BTS also said in a recent press conference, according to Soompi that their success comes from more than just a good social media strategy.

“When we debuted, we started with the stories of school and youth. We have told stories about being human from the very beginning, and it was something we’d planned on before we even debuted,” said member Suga. “We think that our worldview has also expanded bit by bit. I think that in analyzing BTS’s popularity, it is wrong to say that it was just because of social media.”

According to Suga, their music was what made people connect with the band (and thus sparked all those tweets). “Of course it’s due to our fans that we received so much love, but I think that people started paying attention to us because we focused on the music and messages that we thought were important,” he explained. “They listened to our thoughts and took greater interest in what we had to say. People didn’t search us up just because of social media.”

Suga’s bandmate RM agreed, and chalked up BTS’s success to their songs and stage shows. “There are a lot of driving forces [behind our success], but I think the main one is faithfulness to the essentials. We are singers and idols, so the place you can see our final product will always be a concert. Concerts and albums,” he said. “If you love music, it’s even more important that you stay faithful to the essentials. I think that the public is now able to discern the difference between sincere and ‘sincere.’ It’s hard to convey sincerity clearly. We try hard to show our true thoughts, so I think that that was able to overcome the language barriers and touch other people’s hearts as well.”

Clearly, whatever BTS has been doing has been more than successful, and we have a feeling they’ll be feeling the love hardcore during their world tour, which kicked off on August 25 and goes through February 2019.